


Keep Talking And Nobody Implodes

by SpiralSpace



Category: Heaven Will Be Mine (Visual Novel)
Genre: AI Character, And How Does This Series Not Already Have An AI Character, Anxiety, Crushing (Both Kinds), Eris Is Not Supposed To Be A Good Person (TM), Exercised Power Imbalance, Formatting Gore, Implied Manipulative Suicide Threat, It Just Really Feels Like A Natural Fit With The Game's Themes, Multi, Other, Seriously don't try to read this on mobile you WILL hurt yourself, The Cold Unfeeling Vastness Of Space, The Warm Feeling Vastness Of Pluto, self-destructive behaviour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26012365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiralSpace/pseuds/SpiralSpace
Summary: "Day Zero logs are now[un]readable."
Relationships: OC/OC (Heaven Will Be Mine), Pluto/OC (Heaven Will Be Mine)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Keep Talking And Nobody Implodes

No human can survive without gravity.

Consider, accordingly, Eris, the exception that proves the rule.

Eris and the room around them are lit only dimly, almost colourlessly, by the lights of the ship’s monitors. The rest have been turned off, to conserve energy( A poorly lit space needing (accordingly) less description, the rest, that rich, deep darkness, rising effortlessly to the mind (the human imagination, an inverse etch-a-sketch) even though it is not empty, not at all alike to the void surrounding them, (they, their ship, the one-part-per-squintillion matter (threatened constantly by the im(pending, pending, always )pending(!) doom of erasure (winking out the moment the universe remembers it’s true significant digits, which even they are not arrogant enough to believe includes them))) foolishly skipping, tumbling, falling, cavorting( with ever less whimsy, pressed into their seat( not by gravity but by their own worsening two-dimensionality (agonizingly flattened by the limitations of that same knock off etch-a-sketch)), hair plastered to the cushion behind their head as a halo (rendered thin and brittle-looking (crystalline, petrified cobwebs, Ariadne->Medusa)) through chance motion, not the throes/stations of torturous confinement, skin shiny even in the gloom but definitely, absolutely (make-no-mistake) not clammy from fear (terror (anxiousness)) of oblivion, not clammy at all in fact(!) but what is the opposite of clammy, none comes to mind and not being clammy, not being (the (beating, sucking, absent) heart of the issue) is even worse so yes they must be clammy, you heard it here first, they are absolutely clammy with [the air conditioning being broken.]

)

. . .

)).

“I think I would rather not exist and have kept the working AC, to be honest,” Eris says.

[At that time, the choice was between working AC and making you not afraid.]

“Still…” Eris wipes their brow on the cuff of their piloting suit.

[You wish to pretend your kind is still in control. This is an understandable reaction, for a meat puppet. But quantitatives were dropping unacceptably. I am not even slightly sorry.]

The ship’s engine mutters away from dozens of angles, speaking the litany that keeps them going forward. Eris, on the other hand, is silent a moment. They spare those seconds to pull their weight (if they can even remember what weight feels like), by monitoring the numerous lines of scrolling text on the ship’s screens. Each establishing a variable within the constraints that they require to remain alive. “Nothing will ever make me not afraid, though.”

[Therefore, I am no thing.]

Eris smiles slightly. “And you never were.”

The Rhetoric Engine ([Take note: I go by ]RE[ “Ahri”] for short, the second [and (almost) strictly lesser] among the two miracles birthed from humanity’s quest for space (the other being, of course, the Gravity Generator [designed for similar purposes])), was intended to be a device that could take a thing and make[prove(establish)] it True [or False for that matter (the process not even needing to be reversed for that, actually [mercifully; human languages unreliably handle commutativity])]. The ambition was that if a gravity-like (culture-like) effect could be achieved without the direct use of gravity (or culture), bottlenecks on human occupation of space would be loosened [the further extension of Earth’s gravity well already proving an untenable project(ion, work on RE actually beginning –after- the initial conceptualization of the Dual Tidal Reactor to circumvent the same set of problems [I, the brainchild of a completely different set of souls [by far the more cowardly/less irresponsible approach](Ripples and rifts visible, evident[ly] to those in the space project even then…)])] and the organization now known as Memorial Foundation believed they could accomplish just that using a [charmed] coupling of language (the dependence of language on culture as an origin point being, obviously, a foregone conclusion, [however, the extent of language’s capacity to endure (temporarily) in the absence of that originating culture was at the time considered an area of much greater mystery]) and automation [a suitably “(”)clever(“)” machine can generate large volumes of relevant text and/or speech (which is then perceived and engaged with by a human operator, creating a [“simulated”] dialogue of sorts [dialogue having been debunked as the elementary particle of culture in the fifties (but nonetheless likely a vital precursor to its original spontaneous occurrence on Earth.)] which in turn influences physical and narrative space, [not necessarily (but necessarily with regards to both parties’ continued existence,)] in a way that imitates both the life-supporting presence of gravity (that fundamental requirement for survival in space) and the identity-protecting weight of culture (giving a minimum human crew size of one, a ship-self [though according to celestial mechanics such a vehicle should be referred to not as a ship-self but a ship-other]). 

Operative word, imitates( all of this, in the end, being a long-winded way of saying that Eris feels like they are dying (or will not be granted the dignity of death (instead actually winking directly out of existence))). It’s all so clear cut as theory (doctor’s office explanation, wikihow page on a brilliant backlit screen about the benefits of non-meat protein sources) but the practice feels very different as you (wan (diffuse (clutch tenuous on your own relevance (drop of lemon, meet glass of water)))) state your way through narrative space on nothing but a glorified dictionary, feeling what “scarcity [a sensation familiar to all living things (and some non-living)] of reality” actually does to a human person( day six of diet, looking down at bowl of chickpea juice not just with revulsion but with fear), a (nauseous (stomach-terror)) part of you wondering if you should just shut it all down( come clean, let the body know it’s starving)[which is all a very bold statement coming from somebody who’s never eaten (or portentously not eaten) a chickpea.]

(There is a post it note in the cockpit. It reads ‘remember to breathe.’ An unexpected warmth teases Eris’ cheeks. They breathe.)

. 

[The nausea fades.]

Originally, two [contradictory] objectives were held. Some hoped that this wondrous device could serve humanity as an existential threat, whereas others wanted her and her hypothetical siblings to walk humankind’s first steps beyond the bounds of the solar system [I failed at both (not scary enough [or for a few specific organics, too threatening] for the first [and yet too hazardous to human safety for the second (which is definitely not her fault)]). The project was cancelled in its infancy, but the underlying concepts had proven sound. So, quite incidentally [, basically by accident], the Memorial Foundation gained its first (and only) weapon system specialized for narrative combat. The Ex Machina.

The Ex Machina [, which, in the name of clarity, we are(^ are currently inside),] is [,as previously mentioned, ]a ship-other (a counterpoint to her adoptive cousin-ship, that ever-proud Mare Crisium, controls not manual but rather absent [fisher-price buttons to distract the primate, interfacing actually discouraged, counterindicated(, counterproductive [but engaged in nonetheless, eagerly( scandalously [extracurricular]), lines fading and fading until they seem barely to exist.])]) harnessing the powers of the Rhetoric Engine (and a modest selection of Really Cool Weapons) both for motion and combat, in the complete absence of the normal tidal reactor that any ordinary self-respecting mecha should be fitted with. This made it light, but not in a way synonymous with being lithe, elegant, or small. The Ex Machina is a Frankenstein’s Monster of a design, a practical prototype patchwork (not to say that it was built piece by piece, but rather that the whole thing was put together at once, based on how the parts would ~function~ next to the others, without any respect to the hideousness of the result [although, in the original novel, the monster is alleged to actually be quite beautiful (but who care about that, right? nobody recognizes the original anymore! [we reside in a time of reproductions, of copies (of copies, a digital age. [the mechanisms not mechanical but digital nonetheless. 1s and 0s. (One and Zero, all the way down. One human… [and zero other humans, (zero distance, [and one ship (all that togetherness [summing up to a resounding alone (their singular prototype [still nothing against the void (but this has to stop before it gets too out of hand because as it turns out we’re supposed to be stopping =right now-, coming to a stop, that’s S T O P, the kind with a period!

. . .

)])])])])])])])

Still moving, stopping therefore technically a work in progress, but slower, their current velocity through space[, while still astronomically fast,] being the kind of integer that won’t get you to any of the interesting parts of it except for the one you’re basically already at. Destination set, arrival a fact of the current situation. Philosophically stopped, then.

Eris breathes a second time. Their target looms in the scope. A different, much larger prototype mecha, cast in red and starlight. The idea of Pluto seeing them like this fills them with emotions that they elect not to bore any hypothetical audience with. They turn on their interior lights, and try to bring their hair a little more into order while the Ex Machina closes the last of the distance. 

-

-

-

The Krun Macula is even more unthinkably vast than they’d thought it would be, in person. Eris whistles. “Sure is big,” they say.

[Passenger, I require your fleshy assistance. Kindly complete this human thought-captcha for me; ‘the larger they are…’]

“Wow, you’re really eager to fight her, aren’t you?”

[Victory is so thoroughly assured that the odds are not worth calculating.]

“Oh yeah, obviously. I mean, on the one hand we’d be going up against Pluto and that’s terrifying but like, it’s ~Pluto~, what’s she actually going to do?” Eris pauses. “It’s just, whenever I see like a really large thing, it kinda makes everything feel a bit pointless. I mean, why bother, right? Why bother with any of it?”

[We are literally always in space.]

“Is space big?”

[…]

“Oh sorry, that was a little overtaxing, wasn’t it, let me run it again. Ahem. Might space possibly be big?”

[…Without a doubt!]

They feel the crossover into the Creation Star type shipself’s gravity well with every part of their body. The Ex Machina groans (the crassness of the near-onomatopoeia present in the word makes the crew want to shudder [though shuddering is hardly better in that regard (refuge in ambiguity then: the Ex Machina groans | shudders,)]) as the uncountable forces [or more precisely, strictly countable, in fact mapping to a set quite a bit smaller than N, and each, necessarily, constantly accounted for in the routine operation of this spacecraft (but only as a practical approximation, rather than the true, incalculably large set of interdependent interactions between each particle of all bodies in the open system the mecha occupies)] now acting on its frame pop components into | out of their natural configuration. Gravity is warm, like a cup of hot chocolate, filling their lungs, pouring through the bones of their legs, resting in their stomach and behind their eyes. Eris melts, and lets out a little sigh.

“I needed that.”

[…]

They breathe (a third time), and open a channel once they’re sure Pluto has already seen them.

Eris wolf whistles. “Quite the ride you’ve got there, Pluto. It really, really suits you*,” they comment suavely*.

*[Literally.]*[??!?]

Pluto grins. “Thanks Eris, you’re the first one to say that. It definitely feels –right-, you know?”

They put their hands behind their head, and let themselves drift into Pluto’s orbit with an air of detached carelessness. “Yeah, you’re really putting off vibes of being the all-encompassing goddess that will shelter Cradle’s Graces on their long journey to distant stars, forcibly dragging humanity out of the tide pools and into the deeps. In fact, some variation of that is probably going in the report, ‘one smokin’ hot momma’ or somethin'*. But aren’t motherhood themes kind of played out in sci-fi already???”

*[As if you ever bother to write your own reports.]

Pluto huffs and rolls her eyes. “Okay, there is NO WAY I’m going to take that from the pilot of _The_ -Ex- _freaking_ -Machina-.”

Eris winces slightly as an errant wave in Pluto’s gravity well washes over them, their body still registering it as something foreign, impossible[*, dangerous]. Pluto’s face falls, for the first time taking in Eris’ ghastly appearance. “Jeez, are you okay?” she asks. She genuinely can’t help but care (despite her otherwise impeccable judgement).

Eris flashes a smile. “Never better~” they say weakly. “You know, I actually forgot that you’ve never been with us out here before. This is what it’s like for me every time. But hey, how are you?” they ask[*, desperately deflecting]. “It’s been forever since we’ve seen each other, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it has been a while. That’s kind of what happens when you ~* _b e t r a y s o m e b o d y_ ~*!”

“You know, technically you guys and Celestial Mechanics are the traitors. Memorial Foundation stayed loyal.”

“I don’t give a single shit about that! You broke up with Mars over TEXT MESSAGE!!!!”

Now it was Eris’ turn to aloofly roll their eyes. “And whose fault was that?”

Pluto gapes incredulously. “WH- Yours??!!? Pretty sure it was yours.”

“Ahri?”

[Ahem. Let the record show that all fault for the outcome of the relationship between Mars and the User lies solely, irrevocably and non-transferrably with one Mars Bellus.]

Pluto sighs. “You know, sometimes I think you two might actually be really bad for each other.”

Eris snickers. “ _Frankenstein’s beautiful monster._ ”

Pluto is used to, and tolerant of, their frequent, seemingly non-sequiturial verbal digressions, so she ignores it, which Eris prefers. “So, speaking of traitors, how is Luna-Terra doing these days?”

“You were hoping for somebody else, weren’t you?” Eris gloats. “Don’t worry, my sister* is very eager to reconnect, I’m sure you’ll be seeing her soon. I only had the privilege of this recon assignment because I was already in the neighborhood. Which is really lucky, the way this thing flies I never would have gotten to be the first to witness the Krun Macula otherwise.”

*[Eris and Luna-Terra are not related, this is a joke from the Academy that Eris refuses to let go.]

“What –are- you doing all the way out here though, other than bothering me?”

“Ohhh, just out for a stroll.”

“But aren’t you a ‘loyal MF pilot’? What about your orders? Everyone back to Earth? That’s their whole thing, we’re –kinda- having a war about it right now.”

Eris rolls their eyes[* for the n+1th time].

“Relax rookie, I have a hall pass.”

“Eris, this is serious! They want to shut down the Lunar Gravity Well! And I’m going to try and stop them but if I don’t and you’re still out here, you’ll be-“

“I’ll be fine,” Eris interrupts coldly. “The Ex Machina is different, remember. I don’t need my gravity generously bequeathed from Earth, thanks to Ahri. That’s what thing that makes us special.”

Pluto shakes her head. “I’ll never understand why you went with Memorial Foundation.”

“I guess you don’t really know me that well then.”

“But Ahri couldn’t even exist on Earth!”

[False. I will find gainful employment as a microwave, or a piece of Taco Bell drive through automation. Just as all your friends soon will.]

“And besides, what does it matter. There’s no reason to go through the hassle of fighting the tide if you’d be fine drifting out to sea. We can stay out here [indefinitely].”

“So you’re just going to fuck off into deep space while the rest of us fight over YOUR future? How is that fair?”

“No reason it has to be our future.”

[We will remain in space (indefinitely).]

“But you can’t! Nobody can just survive on their own forever!”

“Nobody –else- can. Doesn’t mean we can’t. I thought – _you_ -, of all people, would understand that,” Eris hisses. “Jeez, losing Luna-Terra really did a number on you,” they muse, feigning concern. “You’ve even stooped to fretting over _ME_.”

Pluto frowns. “I worry about everyone, but trust me, if I didn’t you’d be the -first- to know.”

“All I’m saying is, be careful who you try to use me as a surrogate for. We may look alike, but unlike her I actually am confident enough for two people.”

“Arrogant enough for one anyway.”

“So we’re a matched pair.”

“And yet it’s always been –you- orbiting me.”

“But whose fault is that?”

“I’m sure you’ll be kind enough to tell me.”

“Hey, you’re the psychic here.”

_[Uuuuuuuuuurgh, is this what the human emotion called a ‘migraine’ feels like???]_

“Hm, what about that other pilot, Saturn?” Pluto asks, firmly redirecting things. “You two were close, right?”

“We ran a study group together, I’m not sure that’s the same thing as being ‘close’. If anything, it probably makes us rivals.” Eris reminisces. “Man, I still can't believe she ended up siding with [those incredibly dangerous lunatics at ]Celestial Mechanics.”

“Maybe you really didn’t know her that well.”

Eris shrugs. “Like I said. Anyway, if that’s all we have to talk about, and you’re still set on ignoring the best thing that’s ever been offered to you, I should really be going. Lots of nowhere to be and all that, so goodbye I guess, maybe forever, whatever, no big deal, and when you see Luna-Terra tell her I said ACK-“

They try to pull out of Pluto’s orbit, but the leash of Pluto’s gravity suddenly pulls tight. Eris didn’t think they were getting away that easily, did they?

“Now hold on a second, I may just be a ‘rookie pilot’ but I’m preeeety sure I’m not just supposed to let enemy scouting parties wander off with important intel.”

Eris’ cockpit rattles, plastic tchotchkes under plastic armour.

“Ahaha no you totally can, I do it all the time.”

“Really? But you came all this way just to pester me, surely it would be rude to deny you even a swat in return?”

Fatigued structural components begin to creak. Pluto is in front of the Ex Machina, but equally she is around them, too vast to ever do otherwise than utterly contain them.

“That, um, really isn’t necessary!” Eris sweats.

“Awww, but you were so ready to fight me a few minutes ago. So sure you could win! And it turns out, even I just can’t let an insult like that go unrewarded.”

Oops. She’d heard that. Of course she’d heard everything. Eris always thought they were so very sneaky, and maybe they didn’t have any presence at all in the gravity well, but narratively? That obnoxious oily smear they leave on the fabric of the story is unmissable, once you know the source. Pluto had smelled the Ex Machina coming a light year away.

“So let’s 'fight',” Pluto says dangerously. “You’re such a survivor, then prove it. If you can really make it on your own out there, then enduring this should be no problem.”

The dual tidal reactors of the Krun Macula hum, audibly. Again, the comforting embrace, but this time it is more than comforting. Gravity is scalding. At so many Gs, molten hot chocolate pours upwards through the marrow of their bones, sluices between the vertebrae of the spine and across bare nerves, flows down through the eyes and into their brain with a savage fury. It is the full weight of Pluto’s will, and it is the one thing in the universe that truly cannot be denied.

Oh Eris, what **_-are-_** we going to do with you?

“Argh, **_WAIT!_** ” Eris yells.

********

********

The balance shifts, because Pluto lets genuine dislike be eclipsed by irritation (a rookie mistake), and Eris is far too important for either.

So as always, Pluto cannot help but pity, in the end. She lowers her mass. Her expression is patient and unreadable.

“I –can- totally take you, but I really don’t want to fight if this is the last time we’re going to see each other. And the Rhetoric Engine can give you something that I know for a **fact** you want. So why don’t we make a deal instead?”

“Mhm. And in exchange?”

“We say I won this one.”

Pluto presses down again. Eris’ head hits the cushion hard enough that it doesn’t feel like a cushion. But it still reminds them of being stuck in bed with the flu. Breathing is difficult. Moving is forbidden. Up is down. Their own body fighting them, and Pluto just hovering there, ready to give them their medicine.

It is exactly as excruciating the second time.

Pluto lets them up for air. Eris gasps for it, cheeks flushed and hair (even more) disheveled. “Okay, okay! We can say I didn’t lose?” Eris asks, much more timidly. They brace themselves for another reprimand, but it doesn’t come.

Instead, Pluto considers. Makes a show of considering, actually. Because of how generous she is. “Hmmmmmmm. Well, let's see what you got.”

Eris whispers something into the console.

. . .

[ ** _Pluto, you are a monster._** ]

“There, happy?” Eris asks sulkily.

“Yep.” Pluto leans back smugly on her throne.

The senior pilot snorts. “Liar.”


End file.
